Insights

Washington – June 14, 2021: Crowell & Moring has been recommended in six practice areas in the 14th edition of the Legal 500 United States. In addition, partner Daniel R. Forman, co-chair of the firm’s Government Contracts Group and Management Board member, has been named to Legal 500’s “Hall of Fame” for Government Contracts, and Antitrust & Competition partner Megan L. Wolf has been named a “Next Generation Partner” for Merger Control. The firm’s full rankings can be viewed here.

Washington—October 14, 2020: Crowell & Moring is expanding its antitrust bench with the addition of Stefan Meisner, a first-chair defense litigator with extensive transactional and criminal antitrust investigations experience. Meisner joins as a partner in the Antitrust and Competition Group and brings more than two decades of experience representing Fortune 500 companies in significant, cross-jurisdictional antitrust matters.

Plaintiffs battling the Federal Trade Commission’s ban on non-compete clauses in employment agreements notched a significant victory recently.  On August 20, 2024, U.S. District for the Northern District of Texas Judge Ada Brown permanently blocked the agency’s action in Ryan LLC v. Federal Trade Commission, concluding the rulemaking exceeded the agency’s statutory authority.  Judge Brown had previously granted a preliminary injunction that limited its effect to the plaintiffs in the case.  Yesterday’s ruling, however, which granted the plaintiffs’ summary judgment motion, permanently blocks the ban nationwide.

The Federal Trade Commission (“FTC”) is now batting .500 in its effort to defend its rule banning most employee non-compete agreements.  On July 23, 2024, Judge Kelley Hodge of the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania denied the request for a preliminary injunction to block that rule from going into effect pending a full trial.  This decision is at odds with the decision issued earlier this month by Judge Ada Brown of the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Texas, which found that the FTC had exceeded its statutory authority and issued a limited preliminary injunction that prevented the rule from becoming effective as to the plaintiffs in that case. 

On July 3, 2024, Judge Ada Brown of the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Texas temporarily blocked the Federal Trade Commission (“FTC”) from enforcing its recent rule banning virtually all employee non-compete agreements in the United States.  In its 33-page opinion, the court ruled that the plaintiffs are likely to succeed on the merits of their claims that the FTC lacks statutory authority to issue its non-compete ban via rulemaking and that the FTC’s decision to ban non-competes broadly was arbitrary and capricious. However, in a surprise twist, the court declined to grant nationwide preliminary relief, opting instead to limit its injunction to the specific plaintiffs in the action.  The court indicated that it intends to issue a final ruling by August 30, 2024—days before the non-compete ban is scheduled to take effect on September 4.

Participants of the GICLI Annual Meeting share valuable experiences and practical strategies for handling government investigations and related civil litigation at collegial roundtable and panel discussions. An open, knowledge-sharing forum is encourages throughout two days of breakfast sessions, workshops and casual, relationship-building events.

Since the U.S. Department of Justice and the Federal Trade Commission jointly released the Antitrust Guidance for Human Resource Professionals in 2016, the DOJ has been actively and increasingly investigating criminal conduct in employment practices, issuing indictments and opening companies to follow-on civil class action lawsuits. And President Biden’s recent Executive Order on Promoting Competition in the 21st Century specifically calls out labor market competition, further ratcheting up the pressure.

Please join members of Crowell & Moring’s Antitrust & Competition practice for a discussion centered around what to expect in 2021 resulting from the transition in administration and Congress, and how these changes are likely to impact antitrust enforcement and antitrust law more broadly. In particular, the panelists will discuss: